LANSING — A woman who knew two of the three Women’s Huron Valley inmates who died recently says she tried to get help for both of them shortly before their deaths, but prison officials failed to act.
Both inmates who live at Women’s Huron Valley Correctional Facility and the corrections officers who work there say the recent spike in deaths at the prison near Ypsilanti has elevated stress levels that were already high.
Women’s Huron Valley is unique as Michigan’s only women’s prison, meaning it is the only prison in the state where inmates are stuck for the entirety of their sentences and can’t be transferred from one prison to another, as male inmates frequently are. At the same time, only female corrections officers can work in the housing units, where a chronic shortage of officers has resulted in onerous amounts of mandated overtime, little home life, and great difficulty getting transferred elsewhere. A result, both inmates and officers said, is two groups of women trapped together for decades, with long-term relationships — though not always friendly ones — ensuing.
“They’re being forced to stay here 16 to 18 hours a day,” inmate Lynette Pontius said of the officers at the women’s prison.
“When prisoners pass away, it does have an impact on the officers,” said Corrections Officer Georgiann Stan, Michigan Corrections Organization president at the women’s prison.
Band leader warned prison officials of health problems
Ginger Bailey said in a June 8 interview with the Detroit Free Press that she ate dinner in the chow hall with Ashley Hoath on June 5, hours before the 36-year-old woman died at a nearby hospital June 6, and was concerned enough about Hoath’s mental state that she alerted prison officials to keep an eye on her that night.
Bailey, 49, an inmate at Women’s Huron Valley since 2017, said in the interview that she also escorted Rebecca Fackler to health care on May 17, the day Fackler died, after Fackler showed her extreme swelling and greenish liquid oozing from a partly healed surgical incision, around a knee where Fackler had surgery. An officer turned Fackler away from health care and did not allow her to see a nurse, telling her to file “a kite” — a written request for medical attention, Bailey said.
On May 13, Khaira Howard, 28, died after reportedly complaining to the office of a state lawmaker about having to clean up mold at the prison without being provided proper personal protective equipment. Tim Holland, the Grand Rapids attorney representing Howard’s family, told the Free Press June 8 that a private toxicology report has ruled out a drug overdose as the cause of Howard’s death.
Jenni Riehle, a spokeswoman for the MDOC, wouldn’t comment June 8 on what Bailey or Holland said, saying the department “is working to expedite the investigations into the recent deaths.”
Bailey, founder of a band at the prison called STEAM (Self-expression Through Education, Arts and Music) said Hoath, her friend and music student, was a normally upbeat young woman and a student at Eastern Michigan University, involved in many prison activities, who played the harmonica and recently stood out during the band’s performance of “House of the Rising Sun,” and who was looking forward to a future performance planned for September. Hoath, who often went by the nickname “Zella,” recently received a diploma from Jackson College and, in March of this year, gave a presentation on the use of improvisation to respond to trauma and solve problems at an undergraduate symposium at EMU.
But at the chow hall on June 5, something was off, Bailey said. Hoath didn’t eat, and “she was very, very … upset.” Bailey said Hoath thanked her for starting the band and being her friend, and during a discussion about possible improvements at the prison resulting from recent negative publicity, said she didn’t feel she had a future there, Bailey said.
Bailey said she didn’t know what could have caused Hoath’s mood change, but it was striking enough that when she returned to her housing unit, between 5:30 p.m. and 6 p.m., she asked an officer there to tell other officers to keep an eye on Hoath that night. “She’s going to hurt herself,” Bailey said she told the officer. Since Hoath lived in a different housing unit than Bailey did, Bailey asked the officer to call an officer in the unit where Hoath lived, and relay Bailey’s concerns, which she said the officer did.
Other women, including Pontius and Sharee Miller, said Hoath told others she had been hoarding as many as 100 apple seeds, which she planned to ingest, and also was asking other women that night for aspirin or Tylenol, and may have gathered a large quantity. Miller said she suspects Hoath may have also obtained an illicit drug before she was rushed to health care and then to a community hospital emergency ward, after spending long periods alone, and becoming sick to her stomach, inside a handicapped restroom.
Autopsy results are not yet available, Riehle said.
Apple seeds contain small amounts of the compound amygdalin, which can react with enzymes in the body to produce hydrogen cyanide, a toxin, according to Medical News Today. However, a person would have to ingest a very large amount of crushed apple seeds to have a significant effect, experts say.
Miller, 54, who lives in the same unit that Hoath did and who in 2019 won the right, through a federal lawsuit, to report prison abuse to outside agencies, said Hoath told others in the unit she had saved a large number of apple seeds and planned to ingest them.
When a Michigan State Police detective visited the prison the night of June 6 to investigate Hoath’s death, she interviewed many of the women in Hoath’s unit, including Miller, individually, and read the inmates their Miranda rights against self-incrimination prior to questioning them, which caused considerable consternation, Miller said.
Hoath’s brother, Lucas Hoath, and her 18-year-old daughter Anala, who along with two younger siblings was raised by adoptive parents after her mother received a prison sentence in 2018, pushed back against the idea that Ashley Hoath would have harmed herself, during June 8 telephone interviews, and said the alleged use of apple seeds, which Lucas Hoath said he had heard about, is particularly far-fetched.
“I know my sister; Ashley wouldn’t do that,” said Lucas Hoath, who no longer lives in Michigan. “Ashley was very smart.”
Lucas Hoath said a more important focus in the wake of his sister’s death is inadequate health care at the prison and an inadequate response to his sister’s medical emergency, whatever may have caused it.
“There is nothing that can bring my sister back,” he said. “There is nothing that can bring those other two women back.” However, “I want a better facility, better care, and I want repercussions and responsibility for the people who were derelict in their duty.”
In the case of Fackler’s death, Bailey said she never saw Fackler alive again after an officer told her and Fackler that Fackler had to file a kite before she could see a nurse.
“The last thing I said to her was, ‘Becky, you’d better file that kite,'” Bailey said.
State Rep. Laurie Pohutsky, D-Livonia, a member of the House Oversight Committee who has been investigating the women’s prison and the MDOC, said June 8 that she has heard a similar report about Fackler being turned away from health care shortly before her death. Pohutsky said she has requested video of that encounter from the MDOC and was told it would not be provided until the investigation into Fackler’s death is completed.
A Fackler family member has not been available for comment.
Fear builds at prison after multiple deaths
Women at the prison said the recent deaths have increased the level of fear and they are hopeful but skeptical that recent attention from lawmakers and the media will bring positive change.
“People are tired of feeling like they’re never heard — we’re tired of it,” Pontius said in a June 6 telephone interview. “We’re tired of feeling like there’s nobody to go to, there’s nobody for help.”
Pontius, who has lived at the prison for 20 years and believes mold at the facility has worsened, if not caused, two inflammatory diseases she suffers from, said the situation has deteriorated considerably in the last two years as a result of what she described as a lack of accountability and a lack of response to inmate kites and grievances.
Amid the recent deaths, the MDOC has said it is focusing on health care issues as Director Heidi Washington, Deputy Director Jeremy Bush, and former Warden Shawn Brewer have all been working at the women’s prison, where Jeremy Howard is the current warden.
Pontius said she saw a medical specialist outside the prison May 20, and that doctor ordered medication, blood work, and diagnostics for her, sending those directions electronically to the prison. But when she returned from the appointment, prison officials said they had no record of her doctor’s visit and were unable to order the medications, which she needs, or the tests, Pontius said.
Asked whether the increased attention from MDOC headquarters had given Pontius an opportunity to flag that issue with higher-up officials and get it addressed, Pontius said no.
“They fly through here with officers all around them,” she said June 8.
As inmates at the prison have complained about mold, crowding, rampant availability of illicit drugs, and inadequate health care, officers have complained about too little staff, too much forced overtime, rising levels of violence, and what they say is a lack of accountability for inmates who break rules, which they say undermines their authority and makes it more difficult to maintain order.
“The recent events at WHV are a clear reminder of the inherent problems in the female prison system,” said Stan, the MCO president at the women’s prison.
“Officers are skeptical about all the recent attention resulting in any significant change at WHV,” Stan said in a June 7 text message.
“I’ve been working here 25 years and have seen firsthand how the department has struggled to improve staffing and morale. Officers continue to work long hours and, in many cases, fail to get a meal break during their shift.”
Contact Paul Egan: 517-372-8660 or pegan@freepress.com.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Inmate says warnings were ignored before 2 deaths at Michigan women’s prison
Reporting by Paul Egan, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
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By Paul Egan, Detroit Free Press | USA TODAY Network
